The Short Answer for a Boer Goat
A Boer goat is contained by four feet of tight woven wire at minimum, and five feet is the safer choice for bucks and known jumpers. Choose no-climb mesh with small rectangular openings, tension it on sturdy posts, and finish gates to the same height. A Boer combines weight, horns, climbing feet and persistence, so a fence that would hold a sheep or a calf can still fail for this breed in three different ways: over the top, through a trapped-head opening, or under a sagging bottom.
Why Boers Defeat Ordinary Stock Fence
A Boer goat treats fence as furniture and a puzzle at once. This breed stands on mesh to reach browse, rubs its full weight along wire to scratch, and pushes a horned head into any opening that looks like it leads to food. Large square stock mesh is dangerous here, because horns slide in, catch on the turn, and leave a Boer trapped and panicking. Boers also learn from each other, so one doe standing on a low feeder to peer over the top teaches the herd where the boundary is weakest.
Choosing Wire a Boer Cannot Exploit
Choose the Boer fence around the head and the hoof. No-climb woven wire with openings around two by four inches keeps horned heads out and stays too tight for a hoof to gain a step. Keep the bottom wire close to the ground on even tension, since Boer kids and determined adults both test a lifted edge. Space posts so the mesh cannot belly outward when several goats rub together, and brace corners to hold that tension through wet and dry seasons. An inside electric offset strand at shoulder height teaches leaning goats to keep their weight off the wire, which protects the mesh as much as it contains the animals.
Height, Jumpers and Fence-Line Lures
Height only works for a Boer goat when nothing near the fence helps it climb. Keep hay feeders, mineral stations, stumps, shelters and play platforms well inside the pasture, never against the boundary where they become steps. A buck in breeding season deserves the taller line and the strongest gate, because motivation changes what a Boer will attempt. Watch for goats eyeing a low branch that overhangs the fence, since a browse reward on the far side turns an ordinary four-foot fence into a daily challenge. Trim or re-route around that lure rather than blaming the goat for trying.
Inspecting a Boer Fence Before It Fails
Inspect a Boer fence by looking for this breed's signatures: mesh bowed outward at rubbing height, shiny hair caught on a stretched opening, hoof scuffs high on a post, and a gate that now swings with a gap at the latch. Repair a stretched opening promptly, because a head that fits partway today can be trapped tomorrow. If a Boer escapes, note whether it went over, under or through before fixing anything, since each route needs a different repair. Share the inspection route and the latest fixes in KinsLe using Family Sharing, so family members walking the Boer pasture all look at the same corners, gates and rubbed sections.